Pope Francis’ trip to America has been pretty smooth until Wednesday morning, when he sat with President Barack Obama and a room full of reporters in Washington, D.C.

A reporter, presumably not from America, believed it would be a good idea to ask the influential leaders about Black people, but her wording left the president with a baffled look that frankly read, “We’re not here for that.”

Reporter: “Why don’t you say something about the negroes?”

Obama: “Thank you everybody.”

But shortly after that questionable exchange, many came to the reporter’s defense, arguing that she saying “migrants” with an accent, not the racial term.

Our common home has been part of this group of the excluded which cries out to heaven and which today powerfully strikes our homes, our cities and our societies. To use a telling phrase of the Reverend Martin Luther King, we can say that we have defaulted on a promissory note and now is the time to honor it.

We know by faith that “the Creator does not abandon us; he never forsakes his loving plan or repents of having created us. Humanity still has the ability to work together in building our common home” (Laudato Si’, 13). As Christians inspired by this certainty, we wish to commit ourselves to the conscious and responsible care of our common home.

You can read the rest of the Pope’s speech here and watch the painfully awkward moment on loop above.